


oaketra

by tobstertoaster



Category: ARTEKAO (Visual Novel), Original Work
Genre: Gen, NaNoWriMo 2017, yea
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-28 07:06:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12601020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tobstertoaster/pseuds/tobstertoaster
Summary: Kennith Redoc was fresh out of college when he began his journalist career. He only a small group of friends, two of which stayed behind for a bigger project they were doing. Suddenly, lives in the entire world started disappearing off the charts fast. It's up to Kennith to find out why this is happening, and report the entire thing to the public.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> SOOO this is the uhhhhhhhh prequel to my visual novel, ARTEKAO, which u can find on itch.io  
> im writing about my ocs parents for nanowrimo bc ill never get enough of my universe

When Kennith stepped inside the cool atmosphere of the newspaper company, he was wearing a big grin on his face. It was his first day of work, his first day that he'll be starting his dream job. He worked hard to get to this point of his life. Ever since second grade, he knew he wanted to become a writer. He didn't care if it was storytelling, an author, a songwriter, or a journalist, he just wanted to write. Kennith just wanted to pick up a pen and just string words together to have people think that they were looking at an artist's masterpiece. He didn't know how he came to this point. Was it the time that all of the class wanted to listen to his stories during lunch and recess, or was it when he was the only person in class excited to write an essay? Besides, no one could ever forget the times during class where the teacher had to tell Kennith to just put the pen down and listen to them, even though the boy didn't want to stop moving his hand. Maybe it was the time he won awards for his work. 

Whatever it was, Kennith was happy that he finally got to become a journalist. There was just something about journalists that Kennith loved. Particulary the fact that they can take real life stories and somehow make them much more intriguing than they actually are. Sure, there were some people who made the stories boring or biased around their thinking. But the _good_ ones? God, Kennith admired them so. Now finally, he can be like one of the people he so desperately wanted to be. He walked to his office, laptop clinging tightly to his chest and sat down. His own office! He felt like he was walking in a dream come true when he saw the office that he would own for many years. The walls were a boring brown color, but that can be arranged with a bit of permission. He wasn't planning on getting yelled at for changing the wall color of the walls. Besides, this place seems to be a bright, colorful place that encourages creativity! The desk was white with gold engravings in the front, and as pretty as it was, it was empty. However, he decided that can be fixed with a few books and pictures of him and his family.

Kennith carefully placed his new laptop down and opened it up with a smile. He opens a writing program, and began typing out a sentence. Five minutes pass. Ten minutes pass. Fifteen minutes pass. By now, the grin that he had on his face had dropped when he realized he had nothing to write about. There was no topic that his boss gave him at all. Slowly pushing the top of his laptop down, he stood up and started heading towards the door. He left his office and walked past the lobby, heading straight towards his boss's office. With a few knocks, there was a quiet "come in" that prompted him to open the door and walk right in. His boss had short blue hair that stopped at her neck, and she had stern green eyes that managed to strike fear into your heart. However, even with eyes like that, she was a kind person. She had dark skin that was coated in freckles, as well as yellow fingernails that somehow reminded Kennith of sunflowers, or rather, daffodils. Kennith knew that her name was Akari Yukimura. 

"What is it, er...Mr.Redoc, was it?" Akari asked as she placed her hands from under her chin. "Yes! Uh... W-Well you see, well, uh...It's my first day, so I apologize if this isn't how it works. But I was never assigned a topic to write about. So can you please give me some suggestions?" While he was talking, Kennith started wringing his hands and occasionally fixing his glasses. Akari's eyes went wide, and she looked off to the side. "Well, Kennith. You see, I'm not really...the one giving out the topics. This establishment encourages creativity and free will. Most of the time, the journalists know exactly what to write. Maybe you should wait on it and see what you'd like? Look up some ideas on the web, hell, go on and look at some other news sites. But don't plagarize. Plagarizing isn't exactly what you'd want to do. Because it's one, illegal, and two, just very unprofessional. I'll also fire you the moment I see a hint of it." Akari sighed, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. 

She opened her mouth to speak, but the moment she was about to, the door opened. "What is it?" Her eyes immediately darted to the interruption, and Kennith turned to look at it. "Miss, you probably want to see this." A small voice spoke out, and Akari sighed, getting up from her seat and walking toward the door. "Come on, Redoc. If it's so important, then you should have a chance to see this as well." Kennith shot up in surprise, and then quickly followed behind. They walked to the lobby which was lit with candles for atmosphere most likely, with red cushions and glass tables, as well as lava lamp type structures to probably create a calm enviroment. Everyone was watching the television with eyes widened in fear and shock. Kennith had trouble viewing due to his height, so he tried his best to view the screen. The reporter was talking about the sudden decline of human population. In under a week, the seven billion people on earth turned to one billion. However, there were no occurances of natural disasters, shootings, wars, deaths, or anything. People were just disappearing off the face of the Earth without reason, and then suddenly being reported as dead on their papers. People were told to be careful and be safe.

After the commotion died down, Akari turned towards Kennith while her body was shaking, and stared at him. "That. That's your topic."


	2. Chapter 2

**_Human lives mysteriously disappearing?_ **

_ Starting only a week ago, about one billion lives have disappeared off the face of the Earth. Family member mourn for the loses of their loved ones, while not even knowing what happened to them. There has been no sign of increasing crime rate, disease, natural disasters or anything that could have triggered this horrible event. However, I will uncover the reason why this is happening, if I can. One day, this will no longer be a problem in the world. _

Kennith sighed as he was writing on his phone, an incoming call came up on the screen. It was his colleague, Kao Stone. Kao and his roommate stayed back in college to get a full Master’s degree, as well as finish a project that the both of them needed to complete. The journalist smiled upon seeing his old friend’s name; he had missed him, it was a while since they talked. Both of them were so busy, Kennith being busy with his job and Kao being busy with college as well as taking care of his son that he accidentally brought into the world. He accepted the call, speaking in the phone.

 

“H-Hewwo?”  
“Why do you always do this?”

 

Kennith cackled, packing up his things upon noticing that it was nine thirty at night. “Hey Kao. What’s up?” He smiled, walking down the staircase, phone still near his ear. “I’m good. How was the first day?” Kao replied in a quieter tone. “It was great! I mean, we kinda got scared because of the uh...epidemic. You know, one billion lives were lost all in one week! But other than that, it was good. Why are you so quiet?” He tilted his his head as he always did when he asked a question. Kennith always had these habits that he had when he was expressing any different emotions. When he was nervous or upset, he would wring his hands and tap his feet. Sometimes he would twist the earlobe of his ear. But when he was happy, he would jump up and down and flap his hands. When he was curious or confused, he would tilt his head or move his leg side to side. He was always told that his mannerisms were either cute or annoying, no in between.

“I finally got to put Gem down. Kennith, you will never know how hard it is to raise a three year old. Especially someone as hyperactive as him.” Kennith could hear his smile from the other side of the phone, which caused him to grin. “I will in about one year! Ariel is two, you know. But she’s sweet and kind of shy. We once asked her to give the cat a treat, and she started crying because she was too scared of him. It’s probably because Creampuff scratched her once.” He sighed happily upon thinking of the memory. Ariel was the best baby that Kennith could ask for. Not the best child, of course, since he has another kid.

Kao laughed as quietly as he could, and then spoke once again. “Can you come over to the college again, Ken? I can meet you in front of the dorms. It has to be tonight or tomorrow, I just have to show you.” Kennith could hear Kao’s excitement through the phone, even though his voice was in a hushed tone. He tilted his head again. “Isn’t Gem sleeping right now?” Upon hearing that response, Kao quickly responded. “No, no, we won’t be doing it in my dorm room. There’s an abandoned dorm building that the school shut down. They let Arte and I use it for the project. You know, since no one's using it anyway." Kennith opened his car door once he left the building. He tapped into his GPS the location of the college. 

"Kay, I'm heading over there. What's the thing you wanna show me anyway?" Kennith asked, starting to drive away from his workplace. "Ah...Well, you see, it's a surprise. It's not really perfect because Arte and I just finishd it. But let's just say it's something that can help us know when the next one billion or so deaths are going to take place." Kao answered back, the sound of a door closing being heard on his end. Kennith guessed that it was just because Kao left the room that Gem was sleeping in. Which is good, so Kennith could hear Kao's voice more clearly now. "Okay. Well then, I can't wait to see it! How long did it take you guys to build it?" He tilted his head once again. "Hmm...About a month or two. It's really simple. It was one of Arte and I's fun projects, which wasn't supposed to be of any use, but I guess with this epidemic, it can come in handy now."

"That's good. I can't wait to check it out! Listen, I'll be over there soon, okay? You know how I lose focus on the road when talking to people. I'm only ten minutes away, so I'll see you at the gates?" Kennith asked as he almost swerved right into another car as he was talking. Kao laughed and replied, "See you at the gates."


End file.
